Saturday after the First Sunday in Lent San Pietro in Vaticano The Apostle Peter probably came to Rome some time after the year 50 and was martyred around 67 AD in the Circus of Nero near the Vaticanum, a hill outside Imperial Rome near a Roman necropolis. Today the site of his martyrdom and burial is commemorated by the largest church in the world, St. Peter’s Basilica. The “Fisherman’s” burial chamber is found protected under the papal altar in the new basilica. Over his tomb Pope Anacletus (79-91) built an oratory and Constantine (306-337) began to construct his basilica in 323. Pope Sylvester I (314-335) consecrated it on November 18, 326, although it was not completed until the reign of Constans (337-350). The Constantinian basilica remained intact until 1450. This ancient church had the form of a Latin cross, 140 meters long and 63 meters wide, with five naves divided by ninety columns, all coming from nearby monuments and especially from the mausoleum of Hadrian. For centuries the basilica was used as the official cemetery for the popes. When the building threatened to collapse in the fifteenth century, Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) began its restoration. With his death, work came to a halt and nearly remained so for half a century. It was Pope Julius II (1503-1513) who decided that restoration would not suffice, but that a new building was needed. Donato Bramante (1444-1514) was placed in charge, and Julius II laid the first stone (in what is now the St. Veronica pier) on April 18, 1506. After Bramante’s death, construction continued under the architectural direction of Raphael, then Baldassarre Peruzzi, and then for a long time, the great Michelangelo. One of Michelangelo’s primary contributions to the plan was the great dome. Successive architects could not agree whether to make St. Peter’s into the shape of a Greek or Latin cross. In 1607 Pope Paul V (1605-1621) appointed Carlo Maderno architect and instructed him to complete the basilica in the form of a Latin cross. The pope’s decision was based on two factors: he wanted the new basilica to occupy the same area as the old basilica; and a building in the form of a Latin cross was better suited for important liturgical functions. By adding three chapels on each side to the eastern portion of Michelangelo’s building, Maderno created the nave we now see, though his plan is sometimes criticized because the extension necessarily conceals the lower part of Michelangelo’s dome. Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) consecrated the basilica on November 18, 1626, exactly 1300 years after its first consecration. Thus the new Basilica of St. Peter was 120 years in the making (1506-1626). The papal altar does not stand directly beneath the dome’s center but directly above the tomb of St. Peter, as did the altar of the original basilica. The altar overlooks the confessio and faces east. The present altar dates from 1594, when Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) had the earlier altars of Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604) and Pope Callistus II (1119-1124) enclosed within it. Only the pope, or the cardinal whom he deputes, may offer the Mass at this altar. In 1613 Pope Paul V asked Carlo Maderno (1556-1629) and Martino Ferrabosco (Rome 1615-1623) to make an open sunken confession under the dome, in front of the tomb of the apostle. In the wall is the Niche of the Pallia, with a silver casket (1700) in which the pallia are kept until June 29 of each year, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, when the Pope confers them on the newly appointed metropolitan archbishops. (The pallium is a vestment made by Benedictine nuns of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere from the wool of lambs that are blessed at Mass on the Feast of St. Agnes – January 21 – and borne in procession by Roman virgin girls or nuns at the Basilica of Sant’Agnese Fuori le Mura.) Major relics in the church include St. Peter himself, twelve of his thirteen immediate successors (Saints Linus, Cletus, Anacletus – Clement is in his own church – Evaristus, Alexander I, Sixtus I, Telesphorus, Iginus, Pius I, Anicetus, Soter, and Eleutherus). Also in the church are the Apostles Simon and Jude in St. Joseph’s chapel to the left of the main altar, Saints Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, and Saints Boniface IV and Leo’s II, III, IV, and IX. Saint John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzene, the martyrs Petronilla, Processus and Martinianus, and Josaphat, Blessed Innocent XI, Pope Saint Pius X, and Blessed John XXIII are also under the roof of the basilica. There are 144 popes buried in St. Peter’s, a little over half of the popes in history. On certain special feast days throughout the year – including today, the stational day of St. Peter’s Basilica – the church’s greatest relics are displayed. From St. Veronica’s tribune (above and to the left of the main altar), precious relics from Our Lord’s Passion are displayed: the lance of St. Longinus that pierced the side of Jesus on the Cross, the veil that St. Veronica used to wipe the face of Jesus on the road to Calvary and on which he left his holy image, and a segment of the True Cross found by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. The head of St. Andrew, brother of St. Peter, was returned by Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) in 1964 to the Greek Orthodox Church at Patras from whence it came five hundred years prior. Michelangelo’s Pieta is just inside the basilica on the right-hand side, perhaps the most famous piece of art in the world, depicting the moment when Our Lord’s body was placed on his mother’s knees after the Crucifixion. Notice the balance between sadness and strength that the artist has achieved in Mary’s facial expression. Michelangelo was only 22 years old when he started working on the piece, and it is the only piece into which he chiseled his name – since nobody seemed to believe that the youth had sculpted it. Inside the Blessed Sacrament Chapel is the only canvas oil painting in the basilica (the others having been replaced by huge mosaics), the beautiful Holy Trinity painting by Pietro da Cortona. Also of interest is the statue of St. Peter near the main altar which has been touched and kissed by pilgrims for many centuries as a sign of affection and obedience to the Holy Father. At the far end of the basilica you can see Bernini’s spectacular gloria from 1657-1666 that allows beautiful golden light to stream through an alabaster window. In the window is a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, and below it a huge bronze chair which encases the Cathedra Petri, or Chair of Peter. Most likely, this chair comes from the ninth century, having been given to the church by Charles the Bald of France. More importantly, the chair represents the spiritual teaching authority of the Pope, which is only apparently sustained by the four Doctors of the Church (from the West, Sts. Augustine and Ambrose; from the East, Sts. John Chrysostom and Athanasius) – in fact the chair is supported by the billowing clouds of the gloria. The Holy Father’s teaching authority, in other words, does not vie for support among human beings but is sustained and confirmed by the Holy Spirit Himself. St. Peter’s has a floor area of over 21,000 square meters. The interior length of the basilica is 611 feet, and the height of the nave is 145 feet. The interior measurement of the dome’s diameter is approximately 139 feet, while the diameter of each medallion (of the four Evangelists) is 29 feet; the pen in St. Mark’s hand is five feet long, while that of St. Matthew is eight feet long. The baldachin is 96 feet high and weighs approximately 93 tons! Other Points of Interest at San Pietro in Vaticano I. Piazza di San Pietro The Piazza is one of the most successful architectural constructions (1656-1667) that man has conceived. It is undoubtedly the masterpiece of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), executed at the request of Pope Alexander VII (1655-1667). The lower part of the piazza is an ellipse (some 790 feet wide), formed by two semi-circular colonnades, while the upper part is an irregular rectangle with three flights of gently graded steps (total of 22) leading into the basilica. Each colonnade has four rows of Doric columns, forming three interior corridors, the middle one wide enough for a Cardinal’s carriage to have traversed its way to the Apostolic Palace. There are a total of 284 columns and 88 pilasters in the colonnades; the trabeation above has a total of 88 statues of saints, and at the ends of the colonnades the name and coat of arms of Alexander VII. In the entire piazza 153 statues are visible. In the center of the piazza is an Egyptian obelisk of red granite, without hieroglyphs, resting on four bronze lions lying on a tall plinth. The obelisk was brought from Hierapolis to Rome by Caligula (emperor 37-41) in the year 37 and erected in his Circus, which in time became known as that of Nero (emperor 54-68). The Circus was located on the left of the basilica, and the obelisk stood near the present-day sacristy, on the pavement south of the basilica. Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) had the obelisk moved to its present site. It took four months (April 30 to September 10, 1586) to move it some 825 feet, and on the day of its erection in the piazza, forty winches were used with more than 800 workers and 140 horses. This spectacular feat was accomplished by Domenico Fontana (1543-1607), and to show his gratitude and joy, the pontiff raised him to the nobility. It is said that the Pope had ordered complete silence while the precarious operation was being undertaken on September 10th, under penalty of death, so that nobody would lose their concentration. When a sailor cried out “Water on the ropes!” and thus turned certain tragedy into overwhelming victory, the Pope gratefully asked him how he could reward his courage. The sailor asked that the palm leaves used in the basilica in papal ceremonies on Palm Sunday be supplied from his farm for as long as it was in his family’s ownership. Alexander VII (1655-1667) had the obelisk topped with his insignia, in which a relic of the True Cross is enclosed. The distance from the ground to the tip of the cross is about 135 feet. In the pavement surrounding the obelisk are sixteen stone markers indicating names of the winds and the directions whence they come. The bronze lampstands date from 1852. The fountains in the piazza are 46 feet high. The one on the right (as you face the basilica) dates from the time of Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) and was moved here from another location by Maderno at the request of Pope Paul V (1605-1621). It was later rebuilt by Bernini and then duplicated on the other side by Carlo Fontana. Midway between the obelisk and the fountains, on both sides, is a stone disk in the pavement with the words centro del colonnato. Standing on the disk and looking directly at the colonnade, one only sees the first row of columns, as if the colonnade had but a single row. The oversized statues of Sts. Peter (by Giuseppe Fabris) and Paul (by Adamo Tadolini), made in 1838 for the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, were placed here in 1847 by Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878) as replacements for two from the fifteenth century that were taken into the Apostolic Palace. The façade of the basilica, done in travertine marble, was begun by Maderno in the spring of 1608 and completed in July 1612, two years before the nave was finished. The inscription translates: “In honor of the Prince of the Apostles, Pope Paul V Borghese, a Roman, in the Year 1612, the seventh of his pontificate.” (His coat of arms appears in the middle.) Above the middle entrance is a bas relief (1612-1614) of Christ giving the keys to Peter by Ambrogio Buonvincino (ca. 1552-1622). Above the entrance is the Benediction Loggia; it is from the balcony of the center window that the news of the election of a pope is announced to the world by the Dean of the College of Cardinals: “Habemus Papam!” It is likewise from that window that the pope gives his Urbi et Orbi (“To the City and to the World”) blessing on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. An attic with a balustrade carrying thirteen statues (Christ, eleven apostles, and St. John the Baptist), done in 1614, crowns the façade. Pope Pius VI (1775-1799) had clocks installed in the end sections. The basilica’s six bells, electronically operated since 1931, are under the clock on the left; the oldest bell is from 1288. The exterior length of the basilica, including the portico, is 694 feet; the tip of the cross that surmounts the dome is 435 from the ground. II. The Vatican Scavi The scavi (excavations) were undertaken below St. Peter’s about 1940, with the intention of finding the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. For centuries it has been understood that the high altar and its confessio marked the place of Peter’s burial, and also that he had been executed nearby in Nero’s Circus. The obelisk in the Piazza formerly stood to the left of St. Peter’s, and it was supposed that this was its position in the arena when it witnessed the shedding of martyrs’ blood. This tradition was made more precise by a fine detail, namely, that the south wall of Constantine’s basilica actually rested on the foundations of the north wall of the destroyed Circus. Pope Pius XII (Pacelli, 1939-1958) confirmed these traditions by excavating below the nave. Two rows of mausolea were discovered in a wonderful state of preservation; this was the street of the dead from the ancient necropolis. This cemetery path, climbing the Vatican Hill (Vaticanum) had been developed between the first and third centuries. It was an open-air cemetery, not a catacomb, nor was it Christian. The elaborate mausolea were mostly the property of freed slaves, quite an affluent class. Also discovered was the south wall of Constantine’s basilica, but it did not rest on any earlier Circus wall. However, the last mausoleum unearthed (but only as far as the door) has over its entrance an extract from the will of the deceased in which the testator asks to be buried “on the Vatican, near the Circus.” So, clearly one link in the chain of the tradition was already shown to be true, though slightly inexact as it was handed down. Several Christian tombs were found. One was a small mausoleum with a splendid third-century mosaic of Christ represented as a Sun God (Helios). Many early Christian hymns, some of them still used in the Divine Office, compare Christ to the sun. As Christian tombs in pagan burial grounds are rare, this seemed to point to a special Christian interest in this particular cemetery. Accordingly, excavation was commenced anew from a crypt behind the high altar, the Clementine Chapel. To make a long story short, this immediately provided access to a monument of grey marble built by Constantine as the focal point of his basilica, and this in turn enclosed an earlier one erected in the open air about the year 150. Peter, after his execution (he was crucified upside-down), had been buried in a poor man’s grave in a plot some feet to one side of the cemetery path. Eusebius records in his History that just prior to the year 200, a priest named Gaius (or Caius) stated that the relics of St. Peter were on the Vatican Hill. As, in the course of a century, the mausolea encroached on this plot with the development of the cemetery, the Christian community built a wall around their land. The wall actually crossed the apostle’s tomb, so they arranged a small memorial in the wall, and as the ground sloped, a drain was provided to keep the plot dry. A maker’s stamp on a tile used in this drain enables the whole structure to be dated very close to the year 150. As this monument was referred to in a letter by the Roman priest Gaius around the year 200, it is now called the “Trophy (or memorial) of Gaius”. Part of this memorial the archeologists called the “Graffiti Wall” because of the number of Christian symbols on it and requests for prayers etched into its stone. One of the inscriptions, which are in Greek and Latin, clearly states that “Peter is here.” Digging below Gaius’ monument and this Graffiti Wall, archeologists came to a small chamber which almost certainly was St. Peter’s grave. Not only was the grave carefully protected by the large retaining wall, but inside they found votive offerings and coins dating to the first centuries after Christ. In addition, the archeologists found that many other tombs converged, indeed crowded around, this tomb – some tombs were even stacked several high in their efforts to reside closer to the central tomb. Inside they also found a set of bones which, however, were shown to be from three different individuals. At this point the team of archeologists seemed to have been stumped – the bones in Peter’s grave were not those of Peter. One of them, Dotoressa Guarducci, however, discovered that a set of bones had been found, almost ten years prior, inside the Graffiti Wall in a small “repository,” but which were not serious considered at the time because excavators were on their way down to the grave itself. These bones were now removed from their protection under lock and key and submitted for analysis. They turned out to be from a single individual, a man between sixty and seventy years of age, of robust build, and from about the first century. They also found that all the bones, ankles down, were missing, confirming an ancient tradition that, after Peter’s death, Christians had to steal his body at night by chopping him down from the cross at the ankles. Also the bones matched the skull of St. Peter at St. John Lateran. Finally, the bones were found to have particles of earth from Peter’s grave itself and to have been wrapped carefully in a purple cloth (made from a dye from a shellfish called “murex” and reserved exclusively for the imperial household) and bundled with a golden cord. It would appear that the bones of Saint Peter had been found, carefully protected inside the wall from would-be thieves and Roman legionaries during times of persecution. While these bones are not “proven” to be St. Peter’s, many other graves, of more recent date, are positively identified with less evidence. Thus the Pope had the bones returned to the site where they had lain for eighteen centuries, and they remain there today. Visits to the scavi are conducted by expert guides and arranged for groups of one language on application at the Ufficio dei Scavi, located inside Vatican City just beyond the Swiss Guards stationed to the left of the façade of the basilica. III. The Baldachino Since a temporary baldachin had been placed over Clement VIII’s altar, Urban VIII asked Bernini (1598-1680) to prepare something more permanent. He began work on it in the summer of 1624, and it was not until June 28, 1633 that the finished product was unveiled. Four spiral columns, decorated with olive branches, genii, and bees, support a simulated cloth baldachin, whose sides are concave to imitate drapery, and whose flaps (with seraphim heads and bees – Urban’s heraldic device) and tassels appear to be wafted by a breeze. Four graceful angels stand on the columns, and four volutes curve inward and upward until they join at a point upon which a globe surmounted with a cross is fixed. Note the large bee at the base of the globe! On the front, two putti playfully handle the papal tiara. The underside portion of the baldachin has the Holy Spirit with a sunburst background. Bernini’s choice of spiral columns came from his desire to copy the columns that surrounded the apostle’s tomb in the old basilica, which in turn are said to have been modeled on columns from the ancient Herodian temple in Jerusalem. The four bronze columns rest on marble bases approximately eight feet high, with the sculpted coat of arms of Urban VIII. There is a bit of concealed in these sculptures, and the story is told that at the time when these were being prepared, Urban VIII’s niece was about to give birth. Face the confessio and look at the coat of arms on the front column on the left; at the top, somewhat hidden by the folds of the marble, the sculptor has placed a feminine head. By going around the baldachin in clockwise fashion, you will notice that each coat of arms has a similar head, but the expressions change as to indicate the pain of labor. The surprise is on the front side of the fourth and final column. Worthy of note on these same sculptures are the grotesque masks that appear at the base of the coats of arms. To produce his baldachin, Bernini used the bronze ribs that had recently been added to the dome of St. Peter’s, but when this was not enough, Urban VIII (a Barberini) had the bronze trusses and beams (replacing them with wood) taken from the porch of the Pantheon. Though the pope was convinced that he was giving this bronze a more noble character by transforming it into decoration for St. Peter’s tomb, nevertheless the pasquinade current at the time was “Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini!” or “What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did!” The baldachino is 96 feet high and weighs approximately 93 tons or 208,320 pounds! IV. The Nave of the Basilica In front of the main door is a large porphyry disk that was once in front of the main altar of the old basilica. On this disk, Charlemagne knelt on Christmas in the year 800 to be anointed and crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III (795-816). Some twenty other emperors likewise knelt on this disk and received the imperial crown from the hands of the pope. As you walk the length of the nave, with eyes cast downward, you will see bronze markings on the floor indicating the length of other prominent basilicas and cathedrals around the world. A total of twenty-seven are given. These show how far the named church would extend if it were placed inside Saint Peter’s. The shortest church named is St. Patrick’s in New York City (340 feet), and the only other American edifice credited is the largest Catholic church in North America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC (456 feet). The nave of St. Peter’s is 611 feet. The niches in the pillars down the nave have statues of the founders and foundresses of religious orders and congregations. These include Sts. Ignatius of Loyola (third on bottom, left side), Louis Grignion de Montfort (second on top, left side), Teresa of Avila (first on bottom, right side), Vincent de Paul (second on bottom, right side), Philip Neri (third on bottom, right side), and John Bosco (fourth on top, right side). It was in this nave that the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was held. The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) did not take place in the nave of St. Peter's as did Vatican II. Vatican I took place in the right transept of the basilica where a temporary wall had been erected to create a conciliar aula.